Fujifilm FinePix J50 review

An affordable compact enters the market…

The Fujifilm FinePix J50 is the headline model in a new series of affordable compacts aimed squarely at the beginner who wants a little extra from their camera. The main extra offered by the J50 comes in the shape of a 5x zoom lens, equivalent to 37-185mm on a 35mm camera, impressively squeezed into a compact body that’s just 23mm thick. On paper, the extra 2x zoom that the J50 offers over more conventional models doesn’t sound like much, but in practice it makes a real difference to your photography. Now you’re not just limited to standard head-and-shoulder portrait shots, with the J50 allowing you to get in really close or just shoot from further away, perfect for those more candid moments. It will even cope with some sports photography, although don’t expect to capture detailed close-ups unless you’re right on the touchline. At the other end of the zoom, 37mm isn’t particularly wide, but the telephoto setting more than makes up for this slight disappointment.

In terms of design, the J50 looks very similar to Fujifilm’s popular F-series cameras. As you’d expect, it doesn’t feel quite as well built as its more expensive brethren, but the slim 23mm thickness and light 140g weight more than make up for that. We reviewed the rather conservative silver model – go for the more stylish-looking black version if you can. The J50 is intuitive to use, with a prominent shooting Mode dial and separate navigation pad on the rear, and a colourful icon-based menu system that’s perfectly suited to the camera’s beginner target audience. There are a few things that let the J50 down slightly in terms of its design. The USB port awkwardly protrudes from the right-hand edge of the body, the On/Off button is a little too recessed for easy operation (especially with cold or gloved hands) and the Manual automatic mode, which provides two extra options (Exposure Compensation and White Balance), is inconveniently buried away in the Scene Position menu. Otherwise the J50 is a joy to use.

The J50 continues Fujifilm’s recently adopted policy of supporting SD and SDHC cards, in addition to the xD Picture Card format. This is great news for anyone switching from another manufacturer or if you’re keen to save a few pennies, as SD is more ubiquitous and therefore cheaper. If you have an older Fujifilm camera and want to stick with the brand, you can obviously still continue to use your current memory cards.

Despite the budget price tag, the J50 is no slouch in the speed stakes. It’s a nippy performer that outshines many a more expensive model. Start-up, focusing and flash recycle timings are all perfectly respectable, allowing you to concentrate on capturing the moment without having to worry if the camera is going to keep up with the action. There are a few noticeable niggles that betray the J50’s entry-level status, most annoying of which is the incredibly long time that it takes to zoom in and out of an image during playback. On the whole, however, this is an unobtrusive camera that just gets on with the job.

Fujifilm have wisely refused to join in the megapixel wars and instead have sensibly gone with an 8.2-megapixel sensor. We applaud this choice, as more megapixels does not equal better pictures, indeed quite the opposite in many cases. Eight megapixels provide more than enough resolution for the 6 x 4 or A4 prints that most owners of this camera will want to print, and it’ll even cope with bigger A3 prints if you don’t crop the images too much.

Having said all of that, unfortunately the Fujifilm J50’s image quality isn’t actually that great. Despite the modest resolution, this camera suffers from noise and blurring of detail at relatively slow ISO speeds. The slowest ISOs of 100 and 200 are fine, but 400 is too noisy for everyday use and the fastest speed of ISO 800 is a complete write-off. This results in a camera with a nonstabilised, 5x optical zoom lens that can only be used at ISO 100-200, a sure-fire recipe for either shaky, blurred images if you stick to the slow ISO speeds, or noisy, smeared images if you bump up the ISO.

If you shoot mainly outdoors in bright, sunny weather, then the J50 won’t disappoint, with accurate colour balance, few signs of unwanted chromatic aberrations such as purple fringing and adequate flash performance with little sign of red eye. If you want a camera that can cope with indoor, low-light photography (taking pictures of children for example), then look elsewhere. The Picture Stabilization scene mode promises to keep your pictures sharp and free of blur and we certainly found that it helps in low-light situations, but it’s no substitute for a true, optical-based system.

In summary, the Fujifilm FinePix J50 is a promising but ultimately frustrating entry-level digital camera. It’s undoubtedly very easy and quick to use, with the added bonus of looking good too, but unfortunately it fails the acid test of delivering what everyone wants from a camera, namely photos that you would want to hang on your wall.